Oklahoma football: Tim Kish’s Northwestern time impressive
Tim Kish is the new linebacker coach at OU, and our man Travis Haney conducted an interesting interview with Kish for the Friday Oklahoman. You can read it here.
I haven’t met Kish yet, but I’m looking forward to it. And there’s one thing on his resume’ that jumps out above all the rest. Not his Ohio upbringing. Not his eight years on the staff at Army, even though West Point must be a fascinating place to work. Not his eight years on Mike Stoops’ Arizona staff. Interesting items all.
But not as interesting as Kish’s five years at Northwestern. From 1992 through 1996, Kish was on Gary Barnett’s staff. Which means Kish was part of the greatest single-season coaching job in college football history.
For a career, for a job done over several years, I’ll take Bill Snyder and Kansas State. But for one season, for a staff that made players believe when there was no reason to believe, and to be in position to compete when the physical barriers were mighty, I’ll put Northwestern’s 1995 coaches against any ever.
Between 1971 and 1995, Northwestern had 23 straight losing seasons. The Wildcats won 47 games in those 23 years, which means an average of two per year. They won 32 Big Ten games in those 23 years. Their overall record was 47-205-4. Northwestern was the Big Ten punching bag.
Then came 1995. On opening day, Sept. 2, Northwestern played at Notre Dame. And pulled off a 17-15 upset on national television. Northwestern became a national story — and promptly lost 30-28 at home the next game, to Miami-Ohio. At that point, it was time for Northwestern to retreat to its losing ways. To go back in the shadows and let college football’s big boys have the stage.
Except Barnett and his staff didn’t let it happen. Northwestern routed Air Force 30-6 and Indiana 31-7 the next two weeks. Then Northwestern went to Michigan and won 19-13 in the Big House. At that point, everyone knew Northwestern was for real.
And the magic didn’t wane. Minnesota fell 27-17. Wisconsin was waxed 35-0. Northwestern survived arch-rival Illinois 17-14. Penn State came to Evanston, Ill., and lost 21-10. Iowa followed and did the same, 31-20. On Nov. 18, Northwestern capped an unbeaten Big Ten record with a 23-8 victory at Purdue, and the Wildcats were Rose Bowl bound.
On New Year’s Day, Northwestern’s amazing run ended. Southern Cal beat Northwestern 41-32 in the Rose Bowl. But what a season. From nowhere to Pasadena. From Big Ten doormat to Big Ten champ. All within one solitary season. A program that had won 19 games total the previous eight seasons won 10 alone in 1995.
Kish coached outside linebackers for that Northwestern team. Ron Vanderlinden, who went on to become head coach at Maryland (and hired Mike Gundy), was defensive coordinator. Receivers coach Gregg Brandon went on to become head coach at Bowling Green. Running backs coach Jeff Genyk went on to become head coach at Eastern Michigan. Barnett went on to become head coach at Colorado, where he won four Big 12 North Division titles in a five-year span (2001-05).
Northwestern 1995 was a masterful coaching job. That Northwestern team had some talent; Barnett had upgraded recruiting, no doubt. But Northwestern did not have Michigan- and Ohio State- and Penn State-tyle talent. Those coaches got those players to believe in a system and to believe in a dream and to believe in themselves.
Tim Kish was a part of that.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Sounds as if this guy has allot of experience from different situations which would make one perceive that he is knowledgeable and is good at what he does. My concern is how many steps did we take backwards defensively with this turmoil and how many steps forward are needed to be the defense that we once were?? I don’t look for it to happen overnight. It will take at least a good part of the season for the players to adjust and for everybody involved to get on the same page. Anybody that has coached at the high school level and up understands that it takes less time for the defense to be prepared, running on all cylinders and play solid football without allot of early season mistakes. The offense takes much longer to prepare because of timing and execution. It takes much longer for the offense to have everything executing correctly between the line and the skill positions. More so at OU with Bob refusing to run anything but his no huddle so called uptempo offense from the start to the last second of every game. Even at the end of the year the offense has not been on the same page and we have wasteful timeouts taken, broken plays, and false starts. Many times this offense is slower than the traditional huddle because of communication problems and confusion. This often results in beating ourselves. One thing Bob does better than most coaches is to have his offense running effectively at the start of the season. As the season progresses defenses are well prepared for our offense and know what we are going to do before the ball is snapped. We always score more points early in the year and provide a cushion for the defense.
Offense SHOULD be OK next year…just have to replace Broyles….no small order…Stills has a lot of work to do to just hold Broyles’ shoe string. Meteoyer may be what the doctor ordered. Let’s hope so…he will participate in spring ball. Pray Jazz man comes back…along with stills and a TE we are set on offense.
I agree that by mid season the offense is stale against superior teams…we need to use ALL of our talent in better ways. More creativity is needed on offense. Iwe have the kind of talent to run USC’s 2004 offense ….just need to expand the play book. That was a versatile offense. Mix in a little hurry up and who knows how many points you can score.
The key to stopping defensive injuries is more ball control…USC still scored a lot of points…last,time I checked you only needed one more than the other team to win. OU doesn’t have a lot of depth on defense…it doesn’t make sense to keep them on the field further exposing what we have to injury. The defense should get stronger as a season progresses…my dad always said that NC teams play their best ball in November…Stoops’ teams seems to break,down in November. The breakdown is most often on defense….or the lack of a running game on offense….
We may need to settle for a few less points and a healthier defense. Really, what’s the difference in winning by 30 or 15?
He sounds like a great representative for OU.